and the exaction of the Renunciation Act, betray a condition of opinion which at any moment might have produced open discord.  When at last the parliamentary independence of Ireland had led up to a savage rebellion, suppressed I fear with savage severity, English statesmen knew that an independent Irish Parliament threatened the existence of England.  I may be allowed, even by Gladstonians, to place the genius and patriotism of Pitt on at least a level with the genius and patriotism of the present Premier.  I may be allowed to doubt whether Mr. Gladstone’s studies, however profound, in the history of Ireland, can, in 1893, render his acquaintance with the circumstances and the dangers of 1800 equal to the knowledge of the Minister who, in 1800, carried the Act of Union.  And Pitt then held that the Union with Ireland was necessary for the preservation of England.  If moreover Grattan’s Constitution be a precedent for our guidance, let us see to what the precedent points.  The leading principles or features of Grattan’s Constitution are well known.  They are the absolute sovereignty of the Irish Parliament, and its independence of and equality with the Parliament of Great Britain; the renunciation by the British Parliament of any claim whatever to legislate for Ireland, and of any jurisdiction on the part of any British court to entertain appeals from Ireland; and, lastly, the absence of all representation of Ireland in the Parliament at Westminster.  Each of these principles or features is denied or reversed by our new Gladstonian constitution.  The Irish Parliament is to be, not a sovereign legislature, but a subordinate legislature created by statute, and a legislature of such restricted and inferior authority as to be unworthy of the name of a parliament.  The Imperial Parliament, with its vast majority of British members, asserts its absolute supremacy in Ireland, and the right at its discretion to legislate for Ireland on any matter whatever; in Ireland there is to be founded an Imperial or British Court appointed by the Imperial Ministry, having jurisdiction on all matters affecting Imperial rights, and the final Court of Appeal from every tribunal in Ireland is to be the British Privy Council.  Add to this that Irish members are to sit in the Parliament of Westminster as the ‘outward and visible sign’ of the Imperial Parliament’s supremacy.  But if every principle of Grattan’s Constitution be contradicted by the Gladstonian constitution, if every principle which Grattan detested is a principle which Mr. Gladstone asserts, with what show of reason can the success, uncertain though it be, of the Constitution of 1782 be pleaded as evidence of the probable success of the Gladstonian constitution of 1893?  That two arrangements are unlike is to ordinary minds no proof that they will have similar results; a parliamentary majority of forty-two may repeal the Act of Union, but it cannot repeal the laws of logic.[113]

iii. Success of Home Rule.  All over the world, we are told, Home Rule has succeeded; there are, under the government of the British Crown, at least twenty countries enjoying Home Rule, and their local independence causes no inconvenience to the United Kingdom or to the British Empire.  It follows therefore that Home Rule in Ireland will be a success and will in no way disturb the peace or prosperity of the United Kingdom.